When I moved to Beijing from London two years ago, I was pleasantly surprised to find that cycling to work became much easier. I often had the run of this notoriously congested city’s wide, separated bike lanes.两年前从伦敦搬到北京时，我惊喜地发现，在这里骑车上班要容易得多。这个交通拥堵得出名的城市修建了宽阔的自行车道，使我经常如入无人之境。
Last spring, however, I noticed I was suddenly sharing the bike lane with hordes of wobbly beginners. These newcomers had been tempted on to the roads by a clutch of start-ups whose shared bikes can be unlocked using a smartphone — and parked anywhere.然而，去年春天我注意到，我突然要与许多摇摇晃晃的初学骑行者共享自行车道。吸引这些初学者骑车上路的是一大批初创公司，它们推出的共享单车可以用智能手机开锁——而且可以随处停放。
Over the past two years, Ofo and Mobike, the industry leaders, have created 19 million new bicycles, becoming one of China’s most visible tech exports. Their bikes can be seen on the streets of London, Paris and more than 200 other cities around the world. The convenience they offer has brought millions in China on to two wheels for the first time. But they have not been welcomed by everyone.过去两年里，作为行业领头羊的ofo和摩拜(Mobike)投放了1900万辆新自行车，使自行车成为中国最引人注目的科技出口产品之一。它们的自行车在伦敦、巴黎和世界各地另外200多个城市的街头都可看到。共享单车给人们带来便利，在中国，数以百万计的人首次蹬上了这种两个轮子的交通工具。然而也不是人人都欢迎。
Outside China Agricultural University, I met a bike repairman named Luo. Like many others in his line of work, he had moved from the countryside to the city in the 1990s as reforms opened up a booming informal economy, setting up his own repair business out of a silver tuk-tuk. Luo told me that of nine repairmen on campus two years ago, only he remained. He had lost four-fifths of his business, he said, because of bike sharing.在中国农业大学外面，我遇到了一位修自行车的师傅，姓罗（音译）。跟许多同行一样，他在上世纪90年代——当时，改革使“非正式”的经济产业焕发出勃勃生机——从农村来到城市，用一辆银灰色的三轮车干起了修车这个行当。罗师傅告诉我，两年前在农大这一带有九个修自行车的，现在只剩下他了。他说，由于受到共享单车的影响，他如今接的活大概只有以前的五分之一了。
The same thing is happening in China’s southern tech metropolis of Shenzhen. A friend’s relative, Kuang, had run a bike-repair stall there for 21 years, but saw his business dry up last year.在中国南方科技大都市深圳，同样的故事也在上演着。一位朋友的亲戚，匡（音译）师傅，在那里经营着一个自行车修理铺，已经有21年了，但是去年到他那里修车的人已经快绝迹了。
Why not join the bike-sharing platforms, who were recruiting mechanics? After all, the advertised pay for Mobike, about Rmb4,000 (£456) a month, is less than the pair earned before the advent of bike sharing — but more than they were earning last year. Yet for them, money was not the main concern. Unlike young workers in the gig economy, they protest not about the casualisation of their work, but about the formalisation of it — their jobs have been industrialised.何不干脆加入共享单车平台？这些平台都在招维修工，摩拜招工广告上开出的工资是一个月4000元人民币左右（约456美元），这比共享单车出现前两位师傅的收入要少，但比他们去年挣的多。然而对他们来说，钱不是最主要的。与年轻的“零工经济”从业者不同，他们抗议的不是工作“零工化”，而是工作“正式化”——他们从事的工作已经被“产业化”了。
“I want freedom,” Kuang told me over the phone, “I’ve been my own boss for so long, I can’t get used to working for someone else.” He told me he had already rejected an offer from Mobike.“我要的是自由，”匡师傅在电话里告诉我，“我自己干了这么多年了，不习惯给别人干活。”他跟我说，摩拜想招他，他已经拒绝了。
Luo, meanwhile, wanted to keep his flexible hours. He pointed to his grandson, a sixth-grader playing on his phone on the bench near us. “I take him to school every day, as well as my two younger grandchildren.”罗师傅则要保持灵活的工作时间。他指了指他的孙子，这个六年级的小学生正坐在旁边一张长凳上玩着他的手机。“我每天要送他上学，还有另外两个更小的孙子。”
Their concerns about losing flexibility seem well founded. I spoke to an Ofo worker who told me he worked from 7am to 6pm, with two hours for lunch. He pointed me towards a repair depot. On the way, I encountered a grisly trail of bike parts, with dismembered yellow cycles on either side. A pair of locked gates prevented me exploring further. As I tried to make my way out, I met a worker for Bluegogo, another bike-sharing company, who told me the stretch of pavement I was on was a “bike dumping ground”.他们担心失去工作灵活性看来是非常有道理的。我和一位ofo的工作人员聊了聊，他告诉我，他从早上7点上班，下午6点下班，中午有两个小时的午饭休息时间。他为我指点了去一个维修点的路。一路上，我目睹了到处都是自行车零部件的可怕景象，解体的黄色自行车堆放在道路两边。两扇大门紧锁，让我不能进一步探索。正当我想离开时，我遇到了另一家共享单车公司小蓝单车(Bluegogo)的一个员工，他告诉我，我所处的这段路就是一个“自行车垃圾场”。
For Kuang, the idea of life behind these locked gates would mean being alienated from his clients. In the past, “I’d fix a bike and chat with the customer, so the day would go quickly,” he said. He has served so many customers that every two bus trips, he’ll recognise at least one person, he said. Luo has served the university since 1993. While I was talking to him at his repair stall, a family walked past and asked if he had been away recently.对匡师傅来说，在这些紧锁的大门内工作就等于要远离他的顾客。在过去，“我会边修车，边和顾客聊天，一天很快就过去了，”他说。他表示，他给很多人修过车，以至于平均每搭两趟公交车，就至少会遇到一个他认识的人。罗师傅从1993年起就在农大这里修车了，我在他的修车摊和他聊天时，有一家人走过，问他最近是不是没来。
Those working at shared-bike depots, by contrast, have fewer people to speak to — including journalists. Last year, a wave of sensational photographs from the companies’ “bike graveyards” resulted in some depots being moved and workers being ordered not to speak to reporters.相比之下，那些在共享单车维修点上班的人，就没有多少人可交谈了——包括记者。去年，一波“单车坟场”的照片曝光，引起一片哗然，导致一些维修点搬迁，工人们被要求不能和记者说话。
Kuang and Luo are, in some ways, lucky. Part of the first wave of informal business owners in China, they made it in the city and now have university-educated children to support them. This means they have a choice as to whether to work or not. Still, if they decide to pack up their repair kits, a little piece of Chinese city life will go with them.从某些方面来说，匡师傅和罗师傅是幸运的。作为中国非正式产业中的第一批经营者，他们在城里站住了脚，往后也有上过大学的子女可以依靠。这意味着他们可以选择工作或不工作。话虽如此，如果这些修车师傅决定收拾起他们的工具，不干了，那么中国城市生活中的一小幅场景也将随着他们消逝。
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